General Discussion

I back my favorite AI financially, and use the images I generate with it as inspiration for my writing. Sometimes you just need something visual to help you get started. At least I do. I don't consider the images to be art. I don't think actual art can ever be replaced by AI art, though some will most definitely try. In that same vein, respectfully, f Midjourney. Do not support Midjourney or its creator.

It is a fun tool. It helps with some creative concepts.

It makes funny ha-ha images of the Stranger Things demogorgon in Friends and Wheatley playing Mario Kart. That’s about it. If I wanted a serious, legible piece of either topic I’d hire an artist. I’ve commissioned pieces/bought characters from a few artists before and I can’t see AI replacing them, especially the gorgeous physical pieces I’ve gotten

I didn’t know some programmers were using other people’s art to teach their AIs… that’s messed up. Should be stock images or irl pictures only

It's fun for inspiration or just to generate neat concepts, but the fact that people want to replace artists with AI is deeply concerning.
I recall an incident where someone submitted AI art to an otherwise handmade digital art contest and won first prize. Although they used the argument that they spent a while writing and perfecting prompts for the image, it is still scummy considering that it's an entirely different medium with a different process for a contest focused on drawing rather than creating AI generated images.
Overall, I feel like AI art should be its own different medium (similar to photography) and should not replace artists or try to pass itself off as handmade.

Edit: And don't even get me started on the fact that some AI art directly copies off of art from others without permission. Or the fact that many sites turn the generated images in NFTs for some reason. Both of those things are scummy and scary

Posting in this thread again because I have more thoughts lol, I still mostly believe what I said previously on AI art, especially the idea of it being used as another tool for artists, but I think I was taking the issue too lightly since I hadn't done much research into it, and while I'm certainly no expert now I know a little more about the arguments going around! My biggest gripe with AI art is how programs are being trained using images scraped on mass from the internet (Stable Diffusion is the most popular example at the moment) including popular sites artists share their original works on like deviantart!

Overall I feel the argument about AI art should be focused on legal issues rather than ethical ones, since it seems a lot of people in defence of AI art are talking about if it's 'real' art or not and people against AI art are largely artists protesting their artwork to stop being stolen. In my eyes at least these are two very different issues, one is very philosophical and the other is symptomatic of a lack of legal protections for artists.

It's not a unique issue for artists to have their work stolen or used without their knowledge or consent- just open pinterest if you need an example, but AI art issues stand out because they blur the lines of what counts as theft since there's no precedent for this issue- which is a big issue here, especially when thinking about legal protection, you can't pass laws or take legal actions if you can't clearly define the crime being committed. I don't know much about these kinds of things but I think it's much clearer to focus on the images put into AI programs rather than the images they produce.

That being said, I feel I should mention the customer vs chef analogy I hear going around- essentially if you go to a restaurant and order a burger with no pickles, you can't claim you made the burger because you asked for no pickles, clearly it's the chef who did all the work and turned your request into a meal. In the same way, people who use AI programs to make art aren't automatically artists, if you're just requesting an image be made for you you're not inputting enough into the process to make that claim.

Where things get muddy is if the developers who create AI art programs can call themselves artists for developing AI that is creating artwork (assuming AI is truely capable of making 'real' art). I would argue they have more right to make that claim than the average user. and while that might seem counterproductive to some given my other points, this leads to making a much clearer comparison between AI programs using stolen images to create art and claiming someone else's work is your own- the crux of the issue is the degree of difference from the original work.

From my understanding there are already methods that exist within AI programs to making generated work differ more from original data, and it seems AI art programs need a far, far lower tolerance for imitation than they currently have. I think regulations (or at least higher standards) around that issue as well as better protections for original artwork would resolve a lot of the issues around AI art we're currently seeing, and from what I've heard things are moving in this direction already!

To sum things up, I still think AI art could be used as an incredibly valuable tool for artists (like I talked about previously) but I have to emphasise that that is not possible in the current environment around AI art- because the people creating and developing AI tools aren't making them to help artists, they're running them to make a profit, and doing so using art taken without permission or consent- this is especially egregious when specific artists are targeted to the point their names are used as prompted to create imitations of their work. I'm yet to see an example of an artist who has consented to that process. In my opinion, unless you ignore or deny the fact the AI is running on stolen work, there is no ethical way to use AI programs as they exist now.

To avoid venting I'll just say I'm very.. disheartened about it.

And in a decent world i'd love to see it used as a tool or as a fun time waster or inspiration. But i just can't be positive about it.

The parts that I find most infuriating is this narrative that you often see techbros spew about how AI art makes drawing accessible to them. No it doesn't; you are not drawing; you're putting words prompts into a machine. And it's often very clear these people don't actually care about accessibility.

AI is not gonna replace artists nor even get close to that, but the poor database practices that have become common place still have a negative impact on actual artists. And the idea some people have that what these tools do is equal to how artists use references or take inspirations from other artists is just so idiotic to me. No, it's not. Artists are humans with impact on their own artistic process. AI tools are machines that still struggle to not copy and paste the signature of the artist they "learned" from.

AI could be a great and useful tool for art, as a source of visual inspiration and ideas for the initial process but the current state of the mainstream "AI Art" is not that and what it is now is an upsetting mess.

First off, I’ll admit to having made extensive use of ArtBreeder over the past few years. I enjoy the process, I try to recreate my OCs, I feel like it’s made me deeply aware of the limitations of AI image generation(I’m not calling it art).

What really irks me in all this is the training of models to recreate the styles of artists without their permission. A particular artist’s name will often be part of a prompt. These people want to copy another’s work and claim it as theirs. In their own spaces, they don’t even pretend to care about art theft.

I’d rather pay a furry to draw my OC than feed words into a generator to try and get even a little close to what my idea looks like. Seriously, AI can’t even make a hand look right. It is not a threat to living artists now; but we have to organize against it before the software does become advanced enough to generate hands that look like hands. An AI generated image has already been used as a cover for a book by Christopher Paolini. This sets a bad precendent.

Personally I hate current AI art, as an artist it is so sad to see other artists getting their works put into these generators and people using their hard work without the creators permission.
I feel AI could be cool if the people who make these generators hire people to feel them with their artwork, but sadly they are stealing from people

I admit these things before posting:

1. I'm a hobbyist artist, and also identify as a non human. (don't forget, not everyone identifies as a human! But I know that when people say "human artists" they mean anyone who's not an AI)

2. I know NOTHING about AI generated stuff; I don't really do much stuff online except a few select websites, and looking at news and all isn't one of them. xD





But I am probably mixed on the whole deal (ignorance is part of it, don't @ me, please ;3;), but aside from what's been said above, I personally don't like when people are using AI to generate requests.

This actually just happened on Neopets: Someone was taking AI requests of other people's characters, and of course, they were also on the art board, so guess what? They got jumped for using AI. They were previously on another board - a board where it's more about trading pets than anything (Neo has a lot of different boards/forums) - and from what I heard, they were swamped with requests because those people (in others words because I only saw the aftermath) "they just saw a ticket for free art" because "they weren't artists" (as in, drawing their pets isn't their thing, they prefer to trade/adopt/customize them).

Of course, they claimed to be an artist and while yes, I do believe I saw artwork by THEM on a petpage, to see them using AI kinda just...I just had to watch the board and not bother posting. It was a forest fire.



But from that experience alone, I've honestly come to the terms that I'd rather have a 5 second MSPaint doodle of my OCs made with shape tools than a fully generated AI piece from someone I don't even know who probably doesn't even know that their art's being used.

Plus since most of my chars are mechs with muscular bodies or odd proportions, an AI wouldn't be able to generate them properly anyway! And of course, my fanpets? Pfft, good luck, because I have my own designs for them and all I'd otherwise need would be their character design from their fandom! I don't need an AI to try making "short green boy with emo bangs" when I just want to draw Lil Arturo. I'll draw him or request art of him myself.




HOWEVER, if you're using it just for self amusement or to get inspiration, then I honestly won't judge you for that - and I can't, because I use fandoms to generate my own inspo! So I'd be instant hypocrite!

It's when you try to use it for self gain, requests, or ACTUAL projects (like making a game, book cover, whatever) that can earn you money or be accessed by anyone in the future when I get rubbed the wrong way. Even if they're freebies, I'd rather you draw them yourself and do them how YOU can. If I wanted some famous person's artwork, I'd see them or check out their shop or whatever.